NHS prescription charge

[MrTurtleLikesKisses]

I have had hyperthyroidism for 13 years. I picked up my prescription yesterday and paid the £8.60 prescription charge for my 30 tablets (annoyingly, if I had hypothyroidism, my medication would be free ).
Anyway, it suddenly struck me that £8.60 is a lot for a drug that I know has been around for a long time, so I looked online. Sure enough, it looks like it's available to buy, without a prescription, from abroad for a heck of a lot cheaper than £8.60 for 30.
So, have I been a mug all these years? Should I just buy it online? Or should I suck it up and pay the prescription charge like everyone else?

Most (if not all) pharmacies can do this - Don't get me started on P2U...
The reason for mentioning P2U earlier was that somebody said that they could get their medicines cheaper from there.

However the cheaper price is only available if you have a private prescription.

If you have an NHS prescription and use P2U then it is either exempt or £8.60.

The thing is I don't understand why anybody would use P2U for an NHS prescription rather than a local pharmacy.

Personally, I think that it seems ridiculous and making an easy task more complicated.

Sorry Persian Cat I misunderstood - P2U has not been good for your average community pharmacy.

Excuse me User149 but it's only Disabled people that don't work that get free prescriptions!!!!

Our local pharmacy won't stock one of DS meds (I am guessing because it is a set brand he is prescribed?) so I take it to a pharmacy at a supermarket instead - but that only opened a couple of years back so without that I would have probably ended up using a pharmacy 4 u type place.

Sirzy - without knowing your son's medication it is difficult to say, but for high cost, low use drugs most pharmacies would only order when needed.

We ask patients to let us know when they order their script so we order the item in ready for them to collect.

This is only a very small number of high cost specialist drugs, realistically we can't afford to buy items that may never get used.

Justdontgetit - plenty of people get free medication - you don't have to be disabled, you just need to meet the required criteria.

It all balances out. DS1's medication costs the NHS £120 every 4 weeks.

They won't even order it in. Point blank refuse for some reason! Thankfully Asda pharmacy are great so we use them. It's not the first medication they have taken that stance with either!

Sirzy - they actually can't do that - not saying I don't believe you. We have a duty to dispense a prescription presented to us with reasonable promptness. There are some slightly different rules around appliances and we can refuse if we think the script is unsafe or fraudulent.

Bit harsh Prospero... £5 per month plus a ridiculous amount of tax. My kids are in an independent school and we have private healthcare. I use my gp solely to manage this condition as it is 5 mins away and I have to have regular blood tests. We pay our share and take very little. So yes, I was annoyed that they they are charging me £5 per month too much for a prescription. I do acknowledge that I am extremely fortunate that I could pay that without noticing, but others may not be so lucky. I genuinely feel that the NHS should offer the cheapest prescription option as standard. I also admit to feeling a little bit of a mug when I have been delighted by the stories at our local toddler group of mothers demanding Calpol and E45 cream for their children on prescription so they don't have to pay. I can't believe people could be that conniving when others are genuinely struggling. I strongly believe in the NHS for those that need it. We don't use it as resources are stretched and we are lucky we have a choice. But I stand by the fact that I think the principle of charging too much because someone looks as though they can afford it and won't kick up a fuss is wrong. And since the OP has raised the subject, it would seem she is struggling to afford this regular extra cost for medication. If there is a cheaper alternative she deserves to be told. If not then at least she knows, but that doesn't make the situation right.

That's interesting testicles, they are part of a bigger chain so may write to their Head office and ask for an explanation then...

It would be worth asking the question. Stock shortages and quotas might have been the problem, but other than that there is no reason to dispense, even if it means dispensing at a loss.

Sorry Persian Cat I misunderstood - P2U has not been good for your average community pharmacy
Thanks.

I don't think that the Government should ever have allowed things like P2U to dispense NHS prescriptions.

I think that they should be allowed to dispense private ones though.

Local pharmacies provide a wonderful service and people don't appreciate them enough.

Once local pharmacies are nearly all gone, people will really miss them because nothing beats the personal care and service that they can provide.

If OP is paying £8.60 per month that's £103.20 per year. Why would she pay £104 for a 12 month certificate?!?!?

What if she ever needs anything else. For the sake of an extra 80p per year or 0.0021p per day she will get free prescriptions for anything.

I had a ppc although I only get 1 item a month and something else 4 times a year, I needed antibiotics for something, they didnt work, I needed a different course, etc. So that's an extra £17.20 I didnt have to pay as I had a ppc.

Motherbear - we would generally tell people if an item was cheaper to buy. There is an issue with product licenses on occasion. For example we can only sell chloramphenicol for conjunctivitis, but a GP may prescribe for other infective eye conditions.

Sirzy - we have similar problems getting DS1's branded medication from the local pharmacy. It's a local chain and they're set a tiny monthy allocation for the whole chain - I gave up when I put his prescription in at the beginning of the month to find that allocation had been exceeded already.

So DH just takes it to the Asda near where he works, who order in 3 months worth at a time so only rarely don't have it in on the day.

I was annoyed that they they are charging me £5 per month too much for a prescription
They didn't charge you too much for the prescription, you paid £8.60 which is the correct price.

In my photo I have attached a picture of a medicine which is only available on prescription and it clearly has POM on the packet. You cannot buy these from the pharmacist without a prescription.

If a medicine can be bought from a pharmacist without a prescription, it will have a letter P on the packet. These are the kind of medicines that are worth double checking the price on.

Medicines such as iron tablets are rarely worth getting on prescription unless you are exempt from charges or are getting a large quantity.

A lot of GPs automatically give prescriptions because some patients are exempt and those that aren't can enquire about the OTC price themselves.

I get my monthly bag of smarties from the local village pharmacy, mind. No reason not to. In my case, I drop my order into the letterbox at the Gp at the end of my road on the way to school and 3 or 4 days later, I detour via the chemist to pick them up.

If I used something like pharmacy2u, they'd probably deliver while I was out.knowing my luck.

Sorry about the crap quality of the photo I just posted.

Pickachew - quotas are a massive issue, but you can get (after much faffing) get your quota increased.

I have has many disputes - we have had a quota set at 0 - I asked if they actullly wanted to sell their product. Or very low - do I pick my favourite patient and they get to lower their stroke risk that month?
It is very frustrating for those of us that have to deal with it.

Apologies for the errors above...

I will try again...

Pickachew - quotas are a massive issue, but you can (after much faffing) get your quota increased.

I have had many disputes - we have had a quota set at 0 - I asked if they actually wanted to sell their product. Or very low - do I pick my favourite patient and they get to lower their stroke risk that month?
It is very frustrating for those of us that have to deal with it.

One prescription a month is 29p a day. I think that's amazing thh

You may not like the charges but maybe look at the pharmacies instead of the NHS. Seriously, they get paid ALOT for just dispensing the medication, regardless of the cost of the actual drug. They rake it in for controlled drugs.

Khajiit - utter utter bollocks. Do tell me how we rake it in for controlled drugs - I'd be interested to know about this lucrative funding stream I'm missing out on?